Developing a construction safety plan

The construction safety plan is important for several reasons. First, it helps protect workers and the public from injury or harm. Second, it is often required by owners or developers to help limit their liability while the job is taking place. Finally, most insurance companies require a safety plan be put in place for each insured project. Those that don't have this requirement often offer discounts for companies that implement a plan.


Step 1

Start with general safety items required by the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration (OSHA). OSHA is responsible for issuing guidelines and standards to protect workers in all fields. The OSHA Standard No. 1926, which can be found on the organization's website for free, outlines construction specific safety items. These include fall protection, the use of hard hats and safety glasses, fire prevention, and how to safely store hazardous materials. Use these items to help you create a list of basic safety requirements.


Step 2

Include project specific items. Meet with the owners or developers to determine which safety items are critical on their end. If you are working on a project in a hospital, for example, the owners may have safety rules related to power outages by the electricians, or keeping patients and visitors from getting hurt during the building process. Address these concerns with the owners and make sure that safety measures are included in the process.


Step 3

Visit the project site to determine additional safety hazards. Construction sites located near roads, on hilly terrain or on unstable soils may present specific hazards to workers in the form of falls, traffic or possible cave-ins. Look for these items before work begins, and outline how you will address them when creating your safety plan.


Step 4

Check with your insurance company. Construction insurance is very expensive, so anything that can reduce your rates is worth looking into. Many insurance companies offer discounts for specific safety rules, such as requiring all job-site visitors to wear reflective vests and safety glasses, or investing in a state of the art fall protection system.


Step 5

They will be the ones actually performing the work, so you'll need their input. Check to see if individual contractors have rules set in place relative to their work. This may include the electricians marking dangerous equipment in a certain way, or the crane operators requiring a certain buffer zone that no one is allowed in. By including these requirements, you are letting everyone on the job know about them, and helping to create a safe working environment.

Some Myths of Construction Safety

Myth 1: Safety Is Achievable

What is acceptable to one person is not to another, and this difference is not trivial. Even if you confine the determination of acceptability to the same person, what is acceptable one day in one situation might become completely unacceptable later. The even larger issue of how to address unrecognized hazards creates still more difficulty since many things are not recognized as hazards until after they manifest themselves. Clearly, safety is not achievable by any stretch of the imagination.

Myth 2: Safety Is a "Thing" or an Activity

The myth is that you go forth and do safety. In realty, safety is a result, an outcome of actions. Safety is what you get if things are done properly and events go as planned. Even for movie stunts, the definition of a task executed as intended is that it looks real and is safely done. Accidents happen because things occur that prevent the task from proceeding as intended.

Myth 3: Safety Is Best Dealt with Separately

Separating safety as a separate function severs connections with the operating systems delivering results. With no connection to the process as a whole, safety options appear to be selected in an impulsive, random, and uncoordinated manner.

When safety is set up in its own department in an organization, personnel—consciously or unconsciously—transfer responsibility for safety to the department or individual with the title. Safety is seen as someone else's job. This separation creates a barrier, particularly for the flow of information, which only adds to the obstacles to be surmounted.


Myth 4: Safety Programs Will Solve the Problem

Simply creating a safety program only results in possession of a program, not a solution. Having a process designed to deliver safety as an outcome, and managing the effort required to produce it, is significantly different than just having a safety program. It is entirely possible, and it occurs with too high a frequency, that construction firms have a safety program but not a safe record.


Myth 5: Auditing and Site Inspections Deliver Safety

Auditing and inspections can provide an indication of what kinds of problems are occurring on the construction site and where they are happening. The effort of inspecting does nothing to change the reason for the problems discovered. It does not even provide information as to the root cause of the problem. An inspection, by itself, simply identifies that a deviation from intended results has occurred. Thus, an inspection program, by itself, delivers only reports of failure or non conformance to desired results.

Myth 6: The Solution Lies in Finding Some New Technological "Fix"

No complex problem is ever resolved by the introduction of a new technology, particularly if the underlying social system remains undisturbed. On the other hand, adding a new technology without sufficient consideration of how it fits into the existing system can exacerbate an existing problem rather that solve it. By introducing more complexity without expanding the capacity of the system to manage it, a new technology can overwhelm an existing system, and create social problems among those using it.

Myth 7: Construction Is Too Complex and Dynamic

In reality, we know what causes accidents, and we know what needs to be done to effect change. We know how to solve problems. We know how to deal with complexity. We know how to develop controls and systems to deal with dynamic situations. We have access to advanced technology, enhanced information, and increasing knowledge about sociology and group dynamics.